Promotion

Cannonball Run to gain General Motors as backer?

It was November 2011 when we first heard the rumour of a remake of the excellent The Cannonball Run, but nothing came of the story and it was a year later in November 2008 that we heard that it wasn't happening because of difficulties in getting hold of the rights.

That still seemed to be the problem and it never really got resolved. Next thing is the wild rumour appears that Guy Ritchie is set to direct, something that was just mentioned by someone and suddenly it was a big rumour.

Now the rumour hasn't gone away suggesting that he's still interested in making the film, but we all know how easily these rumours are made up, just look at the latest about Jason Statham being interested in Fast and Furious or Transformers which he is now saying is just the usual made up nonsense that he never even heard of before now.

However the story brings something more interesting to the idea of The Cannonball Run remake, a backer, and a big one at that.

General Motors are apparently interested in backing the film and presumably making sure that they put every GM car in there that they can. It's a great way to get backing on the film, but if you look at the originals we were seeing a mixed bag of cars in there from all over the world, not just GM.

The good news is that there's someone willing to provide funding for the film, so if they could get some more car companies from around the world we could see a real Cannonball Run film happening, but do we want it?

Back when the rumour first came out I rather flippantly said:

"As far as I can see that means taking it one of two ways, they can go the Forgetting Sarah Knocked Up Marshall on the Pineapple Express route, or they could go the Ocean's brugeoning crew route.

That means either silly, over the top humour, or make it slicker and cooler, still filled with the same level of comedy but presented in a different much style."

But that's what I feel. Now that we've seen Transformers I do think it could end up looking more like a mixture of that and a Fast and Furious film bundled together. Really though it could go any number of ways, right now we know nothing because the production on the film has barely gotten off the ground.

If it does though I wonder how it will turn out, and I wonder if they can get a pairing to even come close to Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise? I'm not sure they could, and for that reason it would have to go a very different route, I foresee something more realistic.